Notes on the Geography of China: Kunming

An ancient city, Kunming came into the 20th century in 1913, when a French-owned railway reached it from Hanoi, to the southeast. Thirty years later, Kunming got the famous Burma Road, which brought it war materiel from the southwest. By 1950, the city had 300,000 people. Since then, it's grown to about three million. The numbers are less dramatic than the wholesale clearance of one city--built of wood--and its replacement by one of concrete.